


drowning in starlight.

by we_are_just_bad_code



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Maggie's POV, just some angsty gay shit to light up your day, we all love a lil pain dont we
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 12:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15194492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_are_just_bad_code/pseuds/we_are_just_bad_code
Summary: Alex and Maggie go through a hell of a night.Or the one where Maggie accidentally shoots the love of her life.





	drowning in starlight.

As soon as her phone lights up and she sees the caller ID, a smirk makes its way to Maggie’s lips and she puts down the drink she had been nursing on the soft wooden table.

“Sawyer,” she picks up, her chest tingling with warmth as she hears the voice she has grown to find comforting on the other side of the phone. “Be there in twenty.”

Maggie takes her leather jacket from the back of a chair, gets her gun and badge from their usual drawer by the door and prepares herself to assist Agent Danvers. Apparently, the alien the DEO was pursuing at the moment wasn’t much of a threat and so Alex thought she could give Supergirl the night off and take care of it herself.

Maggie finds herself looking in the mirror to make sure she is presentable, before leaving her apartment, which she mentally scolds herself for doing later. Danvers has seen her face covered in blood and dirt so Maggie shouldn’t care if her hair is a little messy after having a long day, especially since what Alex thinks of her doesn’t really matter  (except it sort of does).

Getting on her bike and driving to the address the agent had texted her, Maggie’s heart is beating at a rhythm she finds erratic. She blames it on having a couple of beers before, ignoring the fact it takes a lot more than beer to get her even slightly buzzed and pushing away the idea it was a result of Alex calling _her_ for backup.

Maggie doesn’t deny that she enjoys Danvers’ company, especially not when it involves shooting at targets that actually move and an adrenaline rush that gets her higher than drugs ever could. At least that’s what Detective Sawyer tells herself. To be honest, there’s something else about her new partner that brings the both of them together, although she doesn’t really want to find out what it is, especially not when she’s driving as fast as possible in some highway that will lead her to a warehouse outside of town where she’s expected to meet Alex.

Despite wearing a helmet, Maggie can still feel a slight breeze on her cheeks, which get a bit colder as time passes and she accelerates. This is what she loves about riding a bike instead of driving a car; the way her senses are enhanced and she can actually feel the wind and the fresh air getting past her. It’s a sort of freedom she’s never experienced with anything else.

As she gets further and further away from the city, Maggie notices the stars shining brighter above her head, the dark night sky holding so many wonderful things. She can’t stop herself from thinking about Alex’s eyes or the way they shine, causing the universe to pale in comparison to their beauty.

Once again, Maggie finds herself smiling at the thought of Alex Danvers and she forces that weird feeling she gets whenever she sees the other woman to disappear, until all she feels is the wind and her own heartbeat.

Approaching the warehouse, Maggie notices Alex’s bike already leaning against the concrete wall and searches for its owner in the darkness of the night, the only light being the one the moon provides. Her eyes run through the trees that surround the path leading to the building, but they don’t find anything.

“I was waiting for you,” an all too familiar voice sounds behind her just as her jaw was starting to clench uncomfortably with worry and she got ready to take out her gun from its holster.

“Jesus, Danvers, you trying to scare me to death?” Maggie curses under her breath, her frown being replaced by an effortless smile as she takes in the wonder that is Alex Danvers.

The DEO agent chuckles lightly and oh god, it’s the most amazing sound Maggie has ever heard, the kind you could get a record of and listen to for hours.

Maggie crosses her arms and pushes the pleasing sound to the back of her mind, keeping her signature smirk on. She has to stop these annoying feelings from invading her with such bad timing; after all, the women have a job to do.

“I have already checked the perimeter, we’re clear to engage,” Danvers informs, making her way to the entrance of the building. Her voice is professional, but her lips still curl up into the same grin Maggie has imprinted on her mind. She explains that this should be an easy arrest since the alien doesn’t have any special abilities the DEO is aware of, but takes out her gun anyway.

“Protocol,” she clarifies when Maggie raises her eyebrow at the handgun, getting ready to break into the warehouse and find their target.

***

Turns out protocol is in place for a reason, although their bullets aren’t doing much to stop the alien from kicking their ass. Apparently the DEO had missed that their target was capable of disappearing into thin air, only to come back instants later and punch them in the face.

Minutes into the arrest attempt, Maggie’s breath is ragged and her heart is pounding due to the effort of getting thrown to the ground every single time she gets up. Her knuckles are bruised from the occasional times her punches had actually been able to hit their mark and her lips sting from the cut she got there after hitting her head on the gravel floor.

Ignoring the feeling of something wet and warm flowing from her eyebrow down to her chin, Maggie focuses on the fact the alien has taken a liking to beating her up, leaving Alex alone. She sees her gun, which she had lost some moments ago, laying on the floor a couple of feet away and tries to get to it, only to be kicked in the stomach by a very angry guy with the most annoying powers. This is not how Maggie thought her night would go.

_This is a fucked up way to die_ , she thinks, attempting to block the alien’s next kick.

By the time she hears Danvers yelling something at her offender, Maggie is having trouble breathing and she can taste the iron from her own blood. She’s not a quitter, though, especially when it’s not just her life on the line, and so she takes the opportunity Alex’s distraction gives her and gets her gun, not hesitating to fire on the alien’s back, even though that’s not something she finds honour in.

However, just before she fires her last rounds, the target disappears, coming back behind Alex and getting her on a chokehold, using her as a human shield. By the time Maggie notices the change in positions, her finger has already pressed the trigger twice and the alien isn’t the only one to fall harshly on the ground.

_No, oh no._

Caring about someone much more important than their target, Maggie rushes over to where it laid, dragging Alex’s body away from it, leaving a trail of bright red blood on the floor.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” Maggie’s heart is now beating so much faster than it had when she was the one being hurt, she thinks it could actually come out of her chest.

Alex’s shirt is already soaked in blood, even though it’s been less than a minute since the bullets hit her and Maggie has trouble finding where all of it is actually coming from. She notices a hole in the dark fabric that covers Alex’s shoulder and quickly covers it with both her hands until she realises her partner is holding onto her abdomen. _This isn’t supposed to be happening_.

Alex’s eyes are fixated on Maggie’s, which keep blinking as she hopes what she’s seeing isn’t real. There’s no denying it though, from the thick liquid that keeps gurgling out of Alex’s wounds and flowing right past Maggie’s fingers, that this is very real.

Alex manages to brush one of her hands on Maggie’s cheek, leaving a trail of her blood on it. “I’m going to be okay, don’t cry,” she mumbles.

Maggie hadn’t even noticed the hot stream of tears rolling down her cheeks, being only focused on pressing her hands the best she could to both gunshot wounds.

_Get a grip, Sawyer, do something._ Maggie forces herself to take deep breaths until her vision is cleared, until she’s back in control; she does her best to keep her hands from shaking as she examines Alex’s wounds and tries to push away all the fear and panic that had initially taken over her, like she had so many times before. However, it was harder, this time, to not worry. Maggie had seen a considerable amount of people get hurt in front of her but this was different, this was _Alex_. She couldn’t let anything happen to her.

“Keep pressure on this,” she orders, placing Alex’s own hands on her abdominal wound and keeping one of hers on the agent’s shoulder, flinching slightly at the sound of her hissing in pain. “I’m calling for help,” she says, getting her half broken phone out of her pocket.

Alex is no longer looking at her, her gaze fixated on the ceiling and she tries her best to keep breathing, attempting to say something. “It’s okay, don’t try to talk,” Maggie soothes her after finishing the call, resisting the urge to reach out and move Alex’s hair away from her face.

Blood continues to pour out of her wounds and all Maggie can think of is how she can’t lose Alex, not now, not ever. The way her breath gets shakier and shallower over the time serves to remind Maggie that this is why people are not supposed to fall for each other in their line of work; the loss is just too painful. Not that Maggie had ever thought she loved Alex, she hadn’t, but how was it possible to be so scared for someone’s life if it wasn’t out of love, out of fear of never getting the chance to love?

Maggie’s heart aches at the idea that this might be the last time she sees Alex, the last time she touches her, and all due to rounds she fired herself. This was undeniably her fault. Alex could die because of _her_ and while Maggie had made a lot of mistakes over the course of her life, she thinks this is definitely the worst one.

By now Alex’s forehead is covered in sweat and her hands hold onto Maggie’s as if she’s the only thing keeping her there. Maggie wants to say that everything is going to be fine, that she’s going to be okay, but she doesn’t because that would probably be lying.

“Tell Kara…” she whispers, her voice rough and broken, so different from the one Maggie had heard over the phone just an hour ago. As if all her energy was spent on this last effort to speak, Alex’s eyelids fall over her eyes and the grip she had on Maggie’s hand flatters.

“Stay with me, Danvers,” Maggie begs her, leaning down to check if the other woman was still breathing.

Miraculously, she was and her heart was still beating, although weakly, in her chest.

“Come on, open your eyes,” Maggie urges, shaking her slightly even though she knows it won’t help much. “Hell, you deserve so much more than this, wake up.”

A sudden whoosh of air sounds behind her, but Maggie is too busy trying to keep Alex’s blood from flowing out of her while desperately whispering her name, urging the agent to come back to her, and so she doesn’t really notice someone approaching her.

“Detective Sawyer! What happened?” Supergirl asks as she crouches down next to Alex and her eyes cloud themselves with such worry, Maggie can’t help but wonder how close the hero and her partner are. Scolding herself mentally for being jealous of a woman who could fly when Alex is bleeding out in front of her, Maggie tries to put together all the thoughts swarming her mind.

“She called me as back up to bring in that guy over there,” she explains, her head moving towards where the alien had fallen, while her eyes remain fixated on the way Alex’s chest rises and falls as she takes shallow breaths. “I was- I was shooting at him and he just vanished and grabbed Alex,” she continues, unable to tear her gaze away from the woman she was practically cradling in her arms to look up at Supergirl. “It was my fault,” she whispers.

“Alex will be okay,” Supergirl reassures, her expression hardening with determination as she nods and looks down at the DEO’s best agent to pick her up. “She’s strong, she’ll be okay,” she repeats herself and Maggie isn’t sure who Supergirl is trying to convince, the detective or herself.

Just as fast as she arrived, Supergirl leaves, taking Alex with her into the air and leaving Maggie with nothing but a pool of blood and tears. Kneeling on the floor of that abandoned warehouse, her body battered and bruised, and her cheeks smeared with red, Maggie looks up at the ceiling, looks through the hole Supergirl made in it and tries to find all those stars that reminded her of the galaxies in Alex’s eyes.

The sky is pitch black.

***

The bike ride back to National City is over by the time Maggie knows what she’s doing. All she remembers from it is the cold air finding its way to her skin through her now ripped leather jacket in a way she no longer finds freeing or soothing. Thinking about it now, Maggie is pretty sure she went over every single speed limit on her way back to the city and, honestly, she doesn’t care.

Storming into the DEO and ignoring everything the security guards say to her, Maggie knows how she must look. From the way her eyes are bright with despair to how she’s practically covered in blood, the detective knows she’s not exactly in conditions to demand entering the base of a covert branch of the military, but, once again, she doesn’t really care.

All she cares about is Alex. Alex who took two bullets that weren´t meant for her, that Maggie fired at her. Damn, why did she have to screw everything up? It should have been her taking those bullets; it should have been her lying on the floor, struggling to breathe. Not Alex.

As she tries to push the guilt down so she can just keep walking, a hand firmly grabs her shoulder.

“It’s okay, she’s with me,” Supergirl tells the security guard, her ocean blue eyes searching for Maggie’s. “I’m sorry I left you there, I couldn’t keep Alex stable if I brought you.”

“Don’t worry about it. How is Agent Danvers?” Maggie bites the inside of her cheek at the designation that one could consider professional, or maybe she is just trying to experience something other than the immense weight she feels on her chest. She really does try to ignore the way Supergirl slightly frowns at the question, but she knows then she’s not going to get the answer she hoped. There’s no making things better.

“It doesn’t look good,” Supergirl whispers, her head dropping before she turns around and motions for Maggie to follow her.

Maggie’s feet start moving like they’re on autopilot, following Supergirl’s red cape, and she doesn’t really know where she’s going until they stop and she’s facing the window of a room where people are frantically moving around, carrying blood bags and medical equipment she doesn’t know the name of. It takes Maggie a while to notice someone lying on an operating table in the middle of the room.

“Alex,” Maggie stutters, her hand rising to meet glass in a futile attempt to bring herself closer to the woman on the other side of the window. There’s nothing professional about the way she refers to Alex this time, not when she has to push down a lump in her throat to do it and the agent’s name comes out so quiet it carries a certain unexpected softness to it, so heavy it could even be described as longing.

“They’re doing everything they can,” Supergirl claims, lips pursed and gaze strained on what was going on in the room.

“They shouldn’t have to.”

“This isn’t your fault, Detective Sawyer,” Supergirl diverts her gaze to look at Maggie, who shakes her head and sighs. “You should get yourself checked out. That cut looks pretty awful,” she says, eyeing the wide gash above Maggie’s eyebrow. Although Maggie doesn’t really care about how bad the cut is, she’s happy her battle wounds can provide a distraction from what is happening in front of them. However, she isn’t planning on moving an inch until she is sure Alex will be okay.

 “I’ll look after her,” Supergirl nods reassuringly, arms crossed and jaw clenched, once she notices Maggie’s reluctance to leave. Maggie knows then the strong and invincible act Supergirl is trying to put on is just that, an act. Behind the hard expression and comforting gaze, Maggie sees immense worry and sadness reflected on ocean blue eyes that are just a bit too bright.

Supergirl isn’t made of steel after all.

***

After following Supergirl’s advice and getting cleaned up, Maggie finds herself pacing outside the room Alex is taken to after the doctors finish working. According to them, things went better than expected, considering the amount of trauma the agent had suffered and the place of the wounds. Still, Maggie found herself unable to relax.

It’s been hours since Alex got out of surgery when Maggie’s eyelids start dropping more frequently than she would like to admit. Supergirl had to leave due to some emergency downtown and so Maggie was left alone in the med bay, sitting uncomfortably in a chair next to Alex’s bed, studying the heart rate monitor ever so often just to be sure Alex is actually alive.

Maggie almost scoffs at the memory of pushing away thoughts about the agent laughing just the night before. Right now she just wishes Alex would open her eyes.

Maggie hesitantly reaches for Alex’s hand and slowly caresses her bruised knuckles with her thumb before interlacing their fingers. She is glad someone bothered with washing away the blood from Alex’s skin, although she can still spot traces of red underneath the agent’s fingernails, which match her own.

Alex has been lying perfectly still for what appears to be an eternity before Maggie has the courage to brush a strand of hair away from the agent’s face. Maggie touches her like she’s made out of porcelain: beautiful, but fragile; and she immediately bites her tongue at how she’s thinking of Alex as something that could be broken. If that night has proven anything is that Alex is the strongest person she knows. Otherwise she wouldn’t still be here. However, it’s hard to remember that when all Maggie can see is Alex’s chest rising and falling softly, allowing breaths as shallow as a wave that never reaches the shore.

Before she knows it Maggie’s dozing off, just as the first rays of sunlight shine outside, her head falling on her left shoulder and her hands still holding Alex’s. Just as she can feel herself drowning in the quietness of a restless slumber, Alex’s fingers twitch against her palm and Maggie’s eyes snap open, immediately searching for any movement. Just as Maggie’s beginning to think she’s starting to imagine things, a muffled groan slips through Alex’s lips.

“Hey,” Alex whispers, her lips curling into a tired smile that causes Maggie’s heart to flutter.

“Hey,” Maggie breathes out, half sobbing half giggling, an immense weight being lifted of her chest. “You’re awake.”

“Did you think you could get rid of me that easily?” Alex’s voice is hoarse as she reaches out to wipe away a tear that runs down Maggie’s cheek. Maggie shakes her head fiercely, ignoring all the times the thought of losing Alex had crossed her mind throughout the night. “I’m not leaving you, Maggie,” Alex whispers, covering Maggie’s hands with her own and all Maggie can do is cry a bit harder.

“I almost got you killed,” Maggie says between sobs.

“You did what you had to do, it wasn’t your fault.” Alex corrects just as Maggie manages to lift her gaze from her lap to look at the woman in front of her. Alex’s deep brown eyes are looking right into hers and Maggie has honestly never felt so naked, so exposed. It’s like Alex is looking directly into her soul and Maggie isn’t even trying to stop her. She doesn’t really have the energy to, not after everything, but she finds she doesn’t want to; for the first time in a while, with tears stinging her eyes, Maggie doesn’t want to stop someone from tearing her walls down and taking a look what they protect, what they hide.

“Okay?” Alex insists and when she’s looking like that at Maggie, she can’t do anything but nod and hold Alex’s hand a little bit tighter. “Good,” Alex smiles, locking a strand of hair behind Maggie’s ear before softly resting her hand on Maggie’s cheek, causing the detective to lean into the touch.

“I was so scared you weren’t going to make it,” Maggie confesses after a while, taking Alex’s hand into hers and caressing it softly.

“And why is that?” Alex asks, a little mischievous smirk taking over her expression and her eyebrows arching.

“Well, I couldn’t let a pretty woman die on my watch, now could I?” Maggie grins, deciding to play along. The playful tension is welcome and Maggie is happy to go along with whatever makes Alex get that glint in her eyes she loves so much.

“You think I’m pretty?” Alex questions and Maggie is actually taken aback by the surprise in her tone. It’s not until Alex starts fidgeting with Maggie’s fingers that she realises the agent’s question is a serious one. Is it really going to get Maggie (accidentally) shooting her for her to realise the detective has been into her since they met? Apparently so.

Alex bites her bottom lip, anxiously waiting for an answer and, for a couple of seconds, Maggie forgets that Alex can’t listen to her thoughts.

“I think you’re beautiful,” Maggie breathes out, her lips curling upwards, the familiar dimples making their appearance as her head unconsciously leans closer to Alex’s. Maggie can practically feel the way Alex’s tongue is going to move against hers even before their lips meet and when they do, their kiss is as tender as a dandelion dancing in the wind of a sunny spring morning, delicate, but fierce.

When they part, Alex’s eyes are the ones brimmed with tears and when they fall, Maggie makes sure to pour all her passion into that next kiss, hoping the soft strokes of her tongue show Alex that she’s right there.

She’s not leaving her either.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, after having my brain overwhelmed with the 1st year of med school, I finally decided to get back into writing by finishing a fic I started 18 months ago (i'm a very motivated individual ikr)  
> Maggie's POV isn't my fave to write from, it always feels like it's too out of character and so comments would be greatly appreciated
> 
> I'm on tumblr at @we-are-just-bad-code


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